Reporting: The foundation of business intelligence

If you have the right reports, you have the foundation to gain insights and make better business decisions. From professional report authors to business users to people in the field, IBM can meet the reporting needs of your organization. IBM business intelligence software includes capabilities for authoring, viewing and modifying reports and interactive visualizations—online or off, in Microsoft Office applications or in-process applications, in the office or on the go. IBM reporting capabilities help: Professional report authors develop reports in a single environment and distribute them to the enterprise.

Business users create their own reports or modify existing reports without asking IT;

IT administrators deploy, manage and expand the reporting application;

Mobile workers interact with reports on mobile devices or while disconnected;

Business users have access to a growing collection of customizable visualizations they can download into their reports with extensive visualization.

Based on my experience I would say that business users (non-technical) can create their own analysis and queries without much effort since these tools are user friendly and easy to use – although a (short) training session would be advised. To build professional reports that span all the features available like multi-page reports, interactivity behavior, advanced visualizations, and professional design, more training (and time) is required. The available documentation covers all the topics quite well but some training sessions are advised. The video below demonstrates some of these features, including dashboards, online and offline reports, and office contents. Here you can see an example scenario where a manager is analyzing different areas of related information to understand why the current performance is not as expected. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVqX5u3Irk